Subscribe to this blog

Subscribe to new posts by e-mail

Search This Blog

Fresh Meadows, Queens

The neighborhood of Fresh Meadows was named Black Stump during the 19th century. The name Black Stump came from the practice of marking property lines with blackened stumps at respective property lines. Some stumps still remain, such as in portions of Cunningham Park.

Cunningham Park is a 358 acre park that was purchased and assembled in many parcels of land from 1928 to 1944. The park was originally named Hillside Park. In 1934, Hillside Park was renamed for W. Arthur Cunningham who served during World War I as a major in the 69th Regiment. As the years went on and development increased in the area, roads were created through the park including Oceania Street in 1944, Horace Harding Expressway in 1951, and the Clearview Expressway from 1957 to 1960. Also, in 1952, Junior High School 74 and it's playground was built on parkland.

General Benedict Arnold drilled his troops in Fresh Meadows during the Revolutionary War, at the current location of MS 216.

The Utopia Playground at Utopia Parkway and 73rd Avenue was once the location of the Black Stump School.

The Fresh Meadow Country Club, opened 1923, was designed by A.W. Tillinghast and the site of the PGA Championship in 1930. The U.S. Open was held at the country club as well, in 1932. However, the Country Club, fearing increased development, purchased the defunct Lakeville Golf & Country Club in Lake Success, New York. The former land was sold in February 1946 to the New York Life Insurance Company and became the Fresh Meadows Housing Development in the late 1940s. The Development totals 140 buildings across 147 acres. It was built to house World War II veterans and, initially, had a Whites-only policy.
﻿
﻿

Fresh Meadows Housing Development on September 1, 1962
Museum of the City of New York

St. Francis Preparatory School, the largest Catholic high school in the United States, is located in Fresh Meadows.

The last surviving commercial farm in New York City was located in Fresh Meadows until 2004. Klein Farm was located on 73rd Avenue between 194th Street and 195th Street.

50th Avenue-once named Lawrence Road for the wealthy Queens family of former Mayors and military men.

164th Street-once the right-of-way for a trolley line from Flushing to Jamaica (until 1937).

Kissena Park-Kissena Lake within is named for "cool water" or "it is cold." Named by Samuel Parsons who died in 1906. Kissena Park featured the Parsons' family nursery. Upon Samuel's death, the Parsons family sold the portion to the City. In 1942, the streams were filled in and Kissena Lake was bordered with concrete.

Memorial knoll is a six ton boulder in tribute of World War I. It was dedicated June 5, 1921 and unveiled by the Boy Scouts. The boulder was unearthed during construction of the Flushing Country Club on Jamaica Avenue.

Kissena Park's Korean War memorial was installed in 2007.

The Kissena Park corridor clashes diagonally through the street grid due to a long abandoned railroad right-of-way. The Central Railroad of Long Island built by Scottish immigrant Alexander T. Stewart in 1872 as a means of connecting western Queens with a new development of his, Garden City. The railroad however was a failure and survived just a few years.

Kissena Park & Lake June 2,1926
New York Public Library

The former Vanderbilt Motor Parkway, built in 1906, is also within Cunningham Park. The nation's first automobile highway was built by William K. Vanderbilt Jr. It was built as a race track and later a private toll road that once extended to Lake Ronkonkoma, 48 miles long. The expanding public highway system put the Parkway out of business in 1938 and was donated to the City as parkland.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

﻿﻿ ﻿﻿The first automobile tunnel built under the Hudson River was the Holland Tunnel, opened to vehicular traffic on November 13, 1927. The Holland Tunnel was formerly named the Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel or the Canal Street Tunnel. Today it is named for it's chief engineer Clifford Milburn Holland (1883-1924).

Beginning in 1906, a joint commission of New York and New Jersey explored the possibility of construction of a roadway crossing to connect the states. After design proposals from various engineers including George Goethals, and the firm of Jacobs and Davies, the design of two separate tubes by Clifford Holland was chosen. In 1919, Holland was named Chief Engineer of the project.

On February 1, 1920 funds were appropriated for construction by the New Jersey Interstate Bridge and Tunnel Commission and the New York State Bridge and Tunnel Commission. Construction of the Hudson River Vehicular Tunnel Project began on March 31, 1922 at the corner of Canal Street and West S…

Castle Clinton, today Castle Clinton National Monument, stands two blocks west of where Fort Amsterdam once stood. The sandstone fort was built in anticipation of the War of the 1812. It was built on a small artificial island off shore. Originally called West Battery or Southwest Battery, it was renamed Castle Clinton in 1817 for Dewitt Clinton - New York City's Mayor and later New York Governor.

In 1823, Castle Clinton was deeded to the City. It was used as a restaurant and entertainment center and renamed Castle Garden.

The roof was added in 1840 and Castle Garden served as an opera house and theater. Jenny Lind, often referred to as the "Swedish Nightingale", debuted her American tour at Castle Garden on September 11 and 13 in 1850. She returned again to bring her tour to a close in May of 1852. It served in this respect until 1854.

Stuyvesant Square Park is a park spanning from East 15th Street north to East 17th Street and from Rutherford Place east to Nathan D. Perlman Place. The square is commonly thought to be named for Peter Stuyvesant, the last of the Dutch Director-General of the colony of New Netherlands until it was ceded to English control in 1664. It is actually named for Peter Gerard Stuyvesant.

The park lies within what was the Stuyvesant family farm. The farm once stretched from the Bowery to the East River and from 3rd Street to 14th Street. The park itself is in the approximate location of the original Stuyvesant family mansion.

In 1836, Peter Gerard Stuyvesant and his wife Hellen Rutherford reserved four acres of the family farm and sold it to the City of New York for $5 as a public park, with the proviso that the City of New York build a fence around it. The park square, originally to be named Holland Square, ultimately was named for it's namesake benefactor. Peter Gerard Stuyvesant co-founde…